Power Rangers Actor Up For Major Role In Mortal Kombat

Power Rangers star Ludi Lin is reportedly in talks to take on the role of Liu Kang in the upcoming Mortal Kombat movie, a new report has suggested. Variety reported that the actor is currently negotiating with New Line Cinema about potentially playing one of the first characters in the entire Mortal Kombat series. A full list of characters that’ll be in the movie hasn’t officially been announced yet though, so the fighters that’ll be present and the actors who will play them are still uncertain.

Lin is best known for playing Zack, the Black Ranger, in the 2017 Power Rangers movie as well as his role as Captain Murk in the Jason Momoa-led Aquaman. More recently, Lin played the role of Lance in the Black Mirror episode “Striking Vipers” which is centered around a fictional fighting game that shares the name of the episode.

Liu Kang is the latest character that’s been talked about in the discussion of Mortal Kombat castings. In the Mortal Kombat series, Liu Kang is a Shaolin monk from Earthrealm who is a skilled fighter. Mortal Kombat verterans will recall that the character was also the protagonist of the original Mortal Kombat game who eventually defeats the sorcerer Shang Tsung in a tournament.

Joe Taslim from The Raid and Fast & Furious 6was recently cast as Sub-Zero, another one of the original fighters from the first Mortal Kombat game. ComicBook.com spoke to Greg Russo, the writer for the new Mortal Kombat movie, who teased that we’d see lots of “familiar faces” like the two characters that have already been talked about recently. Russo said that one of the trickiest parts of adapting this type of property was trying to consider how many characters there are in a series like Mortal Kombat.

“I mean there are, I think there's 70 something characters in this and we don't have the ability to stagger these films like the MCU does, right?” Russo said. “We can't do a Sonya movie and then do a Liu Kang movie. So we're forced right into Avengers mode off the bat.”

Lin has not yet been officially confirmed for a role in the new Mortal Kombat film. The movie is not scheduled to be released until March 5, 2021, so expect many more reveals and talks of casting decisions before its release.